Such associations may be legally valuable in so far as the accused who
plead innocence make unconscious movements which imply the denied
wounds. In any event, it is necessary to be cautious because frequently
the merely accurate description of a wound may bring about the same
effect in nervous persons as the sight of that wound. If, however, the
wound is not described and even its place not mentioned, and only the
general harm is spoken of, then if the accused reaches for that part of
his body in which the wound of his victim is located, you have a clew,
and your attention should be directed upon it. Such an index is worth no
more, but even as a clew it has some value.
All in all, we may say that the legally significant direction of
association falls in the same class with “getting an idea.” We need
association for the purpose of constructing an image and an explanation
of the event in question; something must “occur to us.” We must “get an
idea,” if we are to know how something happened. We need association,
moreover, in order to discover that something has occurred to the
witness.
“Getting an idea” or “occurrence” is essentially one and the same in all
its forms. We have only to study its several manifestations:
1. “Constructive occurrence,” by means of which the correct thing may
possibly be discovered in the way of combining, inferring, comparing
and testing. Here the association must be intentional and such ideas
must be brought to a fixed image, which may be in such wise associated
with them as to make a result possible. Suppose, e.g., that the case is
one of arson, and the criminal is unknown. Then we will require the
plaintiff to make local, temporal, identifying, and contrasting
associations with the idea of all and each of his enemies, or of
discharged servants, beggars, etc. In this wise we can attain to other
ideas, which may help us to approach some definite theory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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